Martin Canning admits he may have to leave it late to finish off his Hamilton shopping spree.

The Accies manager only started his summer recruitment last week, with French defender Xavier Tomas and former Liverpool goalkeeper Ryan Fulton the first two arrivals.

Canning reckons with youngsters Steven Boyd, Ross Cunningham, Ronan Hughes, Ryan Tierney and Shaun Want set to break into his first-team this season, he does not need too many more.

He would, however, like to boost his attacking options by adding a couple of quality strikers.

But with competition from bigger clubs south of the border, Canning confessed his club is currently at the back of the queue.

He said: "At this stage of the summer, for clubs of our size it is not easy to get in the guys you want.

"The guys we know can make a difference, everybody else wants them too. The guys themselves think they can play in the English Championship or even the Premier League.

"But perhaps towards the end of the window they realise that's not going to happen for them, so they need to broaden their own search, that's hopefully when if we're on the ball we can be ready to go.

"So you've just got to be patient and keep working at it. Hopefully when the time comes to talk to these guys, you can get a deal done."

Canning feared his side would be left rudderless after losing skipper Michael Devlin to a serious knee injury.

But he believes after hours of searching he has found a replica in French centre-back Tomas, who has been signed from Swiss side Lausanne.

Meanwhile, Canning expects Scotland youth international Fulton to push Gary Woods for Accies' number-one spot this term.

"I've been looking for a big dominant centre-back all summer," said Canning ahead of Saturday's Betfred Cup clash with Queen of the South.

"It's been a long process. You spend lots and lots of hours on the computer looking at CVs.

"You get hundreds of them sent through each week. You are constantly going through them because you are scared you might miss something.

"It can be very time consuming but Xavier stood out when we first saw him a couple of months ago. Thankfully we have managed to get him in.

"Having lost Michael, we knew we had to replace him with somebody just as dominant. When Michael comes back in a few months, it will make us stronger again.

"With Ryan, it was similar. We have kept an eye on him from last season. Initially we were looking at getting him in on loan but we've managed to get a deal sorted that makes him our player, so that's even better.

"He's come here to be a number one, but so does Woodsy, so we will just have to see how they both perform."